Islanders Say New Arena Will Be Privately Financed

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Jon Ledecky, the Islanders’ majority owner, said of the team’s planned arena adjacent to the Belmont Park grandstand: “We’re not looking for government funds.”CreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times

By Allan Kreda

Dec. 20, 2017

The Islanders celebrated a return to Long Island at a news conference on Wednesday at the site of their future home: Belmont Park.

The state’s top development agency, Empire State Development, accepted the Islanders’ proposal for an 18,000-seat arena adjacent to the Belmont Park grandstand. The arena will host at least 41 Islanders games a season and other events. A 400,000-square-foot retail village and a hotel are also planned in the $1 billion project.

The Islanders’ majority owner, Jon Ledecky, did not say how much the arena itself would cost, but he said it would be privately financed.

“We’re not looking for government funds,” he said.

Wednesday’s event was a victory lap for Ledecky, who became the Islanders’ majority owner with Scott Malkin in 2016. He has sought a way out of the team’s unhappy marriage with Barclays Center in Brooklyn for much of the time since.

For 43 seasons, the Islanders played at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, about eight miles east of Belmont Park. But after the previous majority owner, Charles Wang, failed to persuade Nassau County voters to approve his Lighthouse Project, which included plans for a new arena, the team decided in 2012 to move to Brooklyn for the 2015-16 season.

Sharing Barclays Center with the Nets has been difficult. Fans have not shown up in numbers needed to make the arrangement worthwhile. The Islanders are last in the N.H.L. in attendance this season, with about 11,500 fans a game, and they were near the bottom the previous two seasons. There are hundreds of obstructed-view seats and frequent complaints about the quality of the ice at Barclays Center, which opened in 2012 but was not built with hockey in mind.

The Islanders or Barclays Center can opt out of their lease in January. The team has said it intends to play in Brooklyn through next season. But the new arena will not be ready until 2020 at the earliest, so the Islanders may need a temporary home.

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Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo endorsed the Islanders’ plan to build a new arena at Belmont Park.CreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a native of nearby Queens, attended the news conference on Wednesday in support of the Islanders’ arena plan. He urged the N.H.L. commissioner, Gary Bettman, to let the team return on an interim basis to Nassau Coliseum, which after a recent renovation can seat only 13,500 for hockey.

“We’ll take a look at it,” Bettman said.

Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, which runs Barclays Center and the new Nassau Coliseum, said in a statement that it hoped the Islanders would use their former home after they leave Brooklyn and before their first opening face-off at Belmont.

“We are currently awaiting a response from the Islanders to our proposal to bring N.H.L. games back home to the Coliseum on an interim basis,” the statement said. “We understand the required approvals from all parties involved to make that happen, and are prepared to facilitate any necessary enhancements.”

The addition of yet another arena in the New York area represents a different kind of challenge in an already crowded marketplace. The Islanders’ new home would be the fifth arena in the area, including Madison Square Garden and Prudential Center in Newark.

“I’m not worried about other arenas,” Ledecky said. “I’m concerned about making our arena the best in the world.”

Belmont Park, which opened in 1905, hosts horse racing from roughly May through October, including the Belmont Stakes in June. There would not be much overlap with the hockey season unless the Islanders made a long playoff run.

Some certainty about their arena will improve the Islanders’ chances of re-signing their star center John Tavares to a new long-term contract. Tavares, 27, the face of the franchise since he was selected first over all in the 2009 draft, could become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

“The Islanders are called the Islanders for a reason,” he said Wednesday. “This is really where the team belongs.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B11 of the New York edition with the headline: Islanders Celebrate Return to Long Island, ‘Where the Team Belongs’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe